Olivier v. City of Brandon, Mississippi

Gabriel Olivier wanted to share his religious views with others near Brandon Amphitheater in Brandon, Mississippi. But the City of Brandon has an ordinance prohibiting speech or leafleting near the Amphitheater other than in a “protest area” far removed from people coming to events at the venue. So Olivier brought a First Amendment lawsuit to challenge that ordinance.

Olivier was uniquely well positioned to sue. Several months earlier, he had been cited by Brandon police under that same ordinance. However, because he did not contest the citation and just paid the fine, the Fifth Circuit held he could not sue. Under Fifth Circuit precedent, the Supreme Court’s Heck v. Humphrey decision bars people from suing to stop a law’s future enforcement if they have already been arrested or found guilty under that law and did not challenge that arrest or conviction.

FIRE’s friend-of-the-court brief explains that the Fifth Circuit’s take is wrong, splitting with Supreme Court precedent and other federal circuits and straining Heck v. Humphrey beyond its intended scope. If anything, Olivier’s past conviction makes him better suited to challenge the law and ensure that what happened to him before won’t happen again.

In a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court reversed, writing "[t]he suit … requests only forward-looking relief—nothing to do with Olivier’s prior conviction. The question presented here is whether this Court’s decision in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), bars Olivier’s suit. The answer is no. Heck prohibits the use of §1983 to challenge the validity of a prior conviction or sentence so as to obtain release from custody or monetary damages. That decision has no bearing on Olivier’s suit seeking a purely prospective remedy."